The Halfway House

When I sat down in 2022 to watch the 2004 horror comedy "The Halfway House" for the first time, I have to admit that I had never even heard about this movie from writer and director Kenneth J. Hall.

Now, the movie's cover does have that low budget feel to it, but still, the synopsis actually sounded interesting enough. And with "The Halfway House" being a horror comedy that I hadn't already seen, of course I found the time to watch it.

Well, "The Halfway House" is a very, very mixed bag of nuts. The movie was all over the place, and I wouldn't exactly label it as being comedy, because there were no laughs here.

The storyline combines elements from all over the place, and it feels like it was a script and storyline that was written by and for late teenagers. Why? Well, there was an absurd amount of unnecessary nudity in the movie, for starters. Then there were the more than lewd and pseudo-explicit sex scenes, which just fully and wholeheartedly sleazed down the movie to a low level. And of course, it was girl on girl action, what else would it be from a late teenager? And then out of nowhere you have a creature that looked like a death tyrant from the Dungeons & Dragons game. But as it that wasn't enough, then writer and director Kenneth J. Hall stirs in references to Arkham, Massachusetts, the Necronomicon, Charles Dexter and the Miskatonic University.

"The Halfway House" is a cheesy and campy movie. Was it worth the watch? No, not really. Well, it would have been, had writer and director Kenneth J. Hall opted to not include the pointless nudity and the lewd sex scenes. Without that, then "The Halfway House" would have been a much more enjoyable and respectable movie.

Of all the actors and actresses that were playing a part in "The Halfway House", I was only familiar with Mary Woronov (playing Sister Cecilia).

I will say, though, that the special effects in the movie and the creature design were actually rather good, surprisingly enough, taking into consideration the premise of the movie.

Sure, if you are a late teenager and if you are into role-playing games and the Lovecraft Mythos, then you might find something enjoyable here. But if you are a part of a more mature audience that wants to watch a properly entertaining and wholesome movie, then "The Halfway House" is not the best of choices.

My rating of "The Halfway House" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

No pun intended - this knows what it is. I would argue the badness (what else could I call it?) is intended - don't give me that look! Maybe I am wrong, but it is better to imagine they did all this on purpose! Like the bad people in this - they service and they sacrifice for the evil.

There is a lot of nudity, there is a monster (hand made too at times) ... and it gets its tentacles everywhere. Makes kind of sense - well not the movie, that does not make much sense, but hey ... this is here to entertain the lowest of expectations! There is nothing wrong with liking this or being entertained by it - this is not Citizen Kane, this is not a classic ... this is not even halfway there ... even if I always go the full distance (when it comes to puns)!

totally wrong on every level but captivating all the same. so inexcusably pathetic but also so addictive to watch just to see if the acting picked up further into it. a good Sunday movie if you are hungover from the night before, great for zombie-ing out to on an overcast afternoon.

i found myself wondering if these actors have made it in Hollywood, or whether they still are waitressing. not quite even a soft porn movie even if there are plenty of breasts on show.

please ensure you have downed a bottle of vodka or two in the hour before commencing.

This is the sort of horror film that includes a lot of young attractive female actors who are comfortable about acting naked.

Acting and dialogue and action are occasionally weak, but this is low budget, so this should not get in the way of appreciation for those with a true love of such low budget films.

Some might consider this film as filthy dross, but others might consider the dross to be worthwhile food. .

This is the sort of porn horror that I should be able to return to occasionally. The original Last House On The Left is superior in All respects, but the horror in that is too intense for me.

The nudity is restricted to bedtimes and showering and mealtimes. I vastly prefer it to the nudity in the Kindle porn photo magazines that I read in early 2023.

People of IMDb, last night was a very disappointing Halloweenevening. I've red about The Halfway House here at IMDb and I trusted most of the comment.A big mistake !!! What a crap this movie is, I'm a collector of horror movies and I have about 1800 tapes and about 400 DVD's. All horror and thriller. I've seen a lot of bad movies but this one is total crap. I can't understand why some of you like this movie. If you are a lesbian then you might like this movie. The girls are pretty,the lesbian scenes are pretty, the special effects are bad, the acting is bad, the whole movie is bad. It's not been released (yet) in Belgium, so I had to order it in America. People don't waste your money on this, there are lots of good horror movies you can buy. You don't have to buy the worst of the worst.

greets